It’s a dovetail marker, I know it’s not much but it’s the first thing i’ve ever made except for a “frame” that keeps my plate glass from moving on my sharpening table.

And with that dovetail marker I’ve made this practice dovetail:I made two others before this one but, if you can believe it, they were even worse. I think one of the problems is my saw. The blade is bent and it’s not very sharp. I ordered a Veritas dovetail saw today and hopefully my next dovetail will be much nicer.

9 replies so far

Nice job. The key here is that you are doing it. Your dovetails will get better with every one that you do. I’ve heard, and I believe, the advise that if you do 30 dovetails in 30 days you will own that skill.

I’ve got the Veritas dovetail saw and have no complaints. I think you will enjoy it.

That really doesn’t look bad for an early attempt. Keep practicing, my first attempts were terrible. The Veritas saw is nice, I’m happy with mine. There are lots of sources of advice on the web, many are helpful. For me a big step was to use a marking knife, and to get a system down on whether to take the line or leave the line; when I started really thinking about that I saw a big improvement.

They should be. To make good dovetails you need a sharp saw and a sharp chisel. I made a marking guide exactly like that one. What do you mark with. Are you using a knife or awl instead of a pencil? Make the mark deep enough that the saw will follow it. With a good saw, its doesn’t need to be very deep.

Thanks everyone for the kind words of support. Don W: I’ve tried a knife and a pencil but I mostly used pencil. I’ll try to use a knife more and see if that helps. I don’t think I’m going to try again until I get my Veritas saw though. I don’t want to develop any bad habits with this bent saw that I will have to unlearn when I get the Veritas saw.

I just started hand cutting dove tails to, so I feel your pain. My eyes are not what they used to be, so a pencil is easier for me to see, but I found an awl works best for me. I will make a better marking knife to try though.

Here is what works (your new saw should work great), mark the line, set the saw on the line and draw it backwards for the first stroke. I use my fingernail to help guide the blade. It will naturally follow the intent for the line. Then a light cut forward.

I still get some spots that are not as tight as they should be. For those, I fill with glue and grab some sawdust off the dust collector of my RAS and work it in. It hides the line pretty well. Look through my Blanket chest blog . I give some details on how I DT. I find watching others helped me find my style. I watched Paul Sellers a lot, but tend to want to go faster after watching him. I have to tell myself, I’ve been doing woodworking for 40 years, but not cutting DTs.

They just get better from there. My first attempts that that joint were not pretty, but a few practice sessions and you really start t get the hang of it.

For Layout I like to use a pencil…or even a pen for the tails, and I use a custom knife to transfer that to the pins. I took an old steak knife and dulled the heck out of it on the concrete floor, it leave a clean mark but a fairly fat one that is easy to see and track with a saw.

Take the time to shade in your waste with a pencil, that makes life easier when it comes to figuring out which side of the line you want to cut on.